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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23287489">Love Under Lockdown</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormygreen/pseuds/stormygreen'>stormygreen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>COVID-19, Coronavirus, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/F, Falling In Love, Living Together, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Romantic Comedy, Roommates, There Is Only One Bed, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Useless Lesbians, cannot believe i'm writing this tag but, in which two strangers find themselves, when their city goes into lockdown</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:42:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,752</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23287489</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormygreen/pseuds/stormygreen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You don’t have to decide right away,” Ade says. “It’s just that, well, you said you had nowhere to live, and I have a couch that folds into a bed.” She backs away, into the kitchen and begins to fill the kettle with water. “Why don’t we have some tea, and some biscuits—I think I’ve got some—and talk about this?” She forces herself to put down the teabags and look Jordan in the eye. Her hands are shaking, so she takes a deep breath. “There’s hand-sanitizer in the dish with the keys. If you’re going to leave, at least use some before you go.”<br/>Jordan looks at her, angry eyes strangely wide, and then at the hand-sanitizer where it sits next to the keys, and slowly, but surely, closes the front door behind her. She says, “I’m not gonna go.”<br/>“Okay.” Ade replies.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter One - Ade</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My city announced today that we'd be going into lockdown, but I've been in self-isolation for a week already and I'm going INSANE. This story is my escape, hope it can be yours too lol. I'll keep it going for as long as we're in this mess. Updates once a week!</p><p>UPDATE: i started this without a plan, so I'll be planning for the next few days! hopefully i'll have something up soon :D</p><p>The <a>tumblr</a> for this series</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>*</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“She had never entirely let go of the notion that if she reached far enough with her thoughts she might find someone waiting, that if two people were to cast their thoughts outward at the same moment they might somehow meet in the middle.”<br/>
― <span class="authorOrTitle">Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven</span></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The virus had taken its first stumbling steps in a small province in some large country, four months or so before a summer most would remember as the craziest and most boring of their lives. It had spread quickly—those in the West would say <em>and silently—</em>and it had killed people. It was scary, but to many it was also far away, and, to their extreme detriment, most people focused on the latter part of that sentence for far too long.  </p><p>London was in lockdown by late March.</p><p>Our story starts a day or so before the streets were cleared for good, in an apartment near the river, with a yellow painted door.</p><p>“You’re breaking up with me.” It wasn’t a question. Ade stares at her boyfriend—<em>ex-boyfriend, now. Fuck.</em>—and puts everything she has into trying not to cry.</p><p>“Yes,” Anish says, helplessly. “Look, I’m sorry, I really am. I love you, Ade, but I’m not <em>in</em> love with you. They’re saying we could be in self-isolation for months. And I… the thought of doing that here, with you—”</p><p>“Are you <em>serious</em>?” Ade replies. “Are you fucking serious?” But she’s thinking <em>please, not this. Anything but this. What can I say to make him stay—</em></p><p>“You’re not well, Ade. You’re obsessive. Even over this stupid virus, you’re so scared. You’re so scared of everything, of—of <em>living</em>, and I can’t be shackled to someone too terrified to look themselves in the eye and admit that they need <em>help</em>.”</p><p>It’s like Anish has punched her. She can’t think, can’t really breathe, but she knows that panicking is not an option; it would only prove him right. <em>Shackled? </em>she thinks, horrified and sick, and nearly says it out loud like a stupid trained parrot.</p><p>“Get out,” she says. Tears are hot in her throat.</p><p>“Don’t be dramatic, I need to get my things—”</p><p>“I said, <em>get out</em>, Anish.”</p><p>“I <em>need</em> my <em>things</em>—”</p><p>“What you <em>need, </em>is to <em>leave</em>,” she says, and takes a few menacing steps forward. It’s ridiculous, but she’s always been a few inches taller than him—she’d liked it, in the beginning, that he hadn’t minded. That feels very shallow now.</p><p>“Okay! Fine. I’m going. But I’m sending a van.”</p><p>“I don’t care.”</p><p>“Ade.” He looks at her, big brown eyes, and swoopy hair, and she feels what she’s always felt for him until the loathing of this moment: a tepid <em>like</em>, with the potential for love, and a big spoonful of attraction to sweeten the brew. It’s not enough. Maybe it never was, for either of them.</p><p>“Go.”</p><p>He goes.</p><p>Prime Minister Corbyn announces citywide lockdown less than thirty-six hours later, and Ade listens to the broadcast alone. If she cries—huge sobs, heaving with the weight of her sudden and inexplicable <em>aloneness</em>—that’s nobody’s business but her own.</p><p>***</p><p>She wakes from a black-out, no-dreams sleep, the kind that is half-depression nap and half the result of a late-night Schitt’s Creek marathon, with her cheek glued to the pillow by drool, snot and tears, feeling like someone ran over her head with a truck in the night</p><p>Her phone rings. Blearily, she turns down the brightness, cracks an eye open and looks:</p><p>It’s Annushka, co-worker from her first Saturday job a lifetime ago, and best friend of all time ever since. <em>Oh, thank god. </em>She presses ‘Accept’ with as much vigour as she can muster.</p><p>“Hello?” Nushy’s familiar Russian accent is like a soothing balm. “Are you there, slag of my heart, light of my life?”</p><p>“Mnm.”</p><p>“Ade. What is wrong with you? You haven’t answered any of my messages. Did you see we’re on lockdown? Fucking <em>tanks</em> on the M5, I couldn’t believe it.”</p><p>Ade swipes into her notification centre. She’d heard the broadcast, but <em>tanks on the motorway? </em>She has five texts from Nushy, rife with exclamation marks, a call from her mother, and over forty-five messages on the cousin’s groupchat, the latest of which was a grainy image from one of her aunties depicting an old Nigerian artefact that had supposedly predicted the pandemic.</p><p>“Jesus Christ.”</p><p>“I know! It’s crazy out there. They’ve started rationing, properly too, but I’ll tell you what, it’s only in the major stores. The corner shops aren’t rationing shit, but my guy was selling eggs out of the carton for 30p each. I could have clubbed the bastard round the—"</p><p>“Nushy I broke up with Anish.” She just needed to <em>say it.</em></p><p>“Oh. <em>Oh</em>, kroshka, I’m so sorry, that’s shit.” Annushka is silent for a few moments. Then, “You know I never liked him anyway. Far too pleased with himself, you know? And he said his favourite movie was fucking <em>Fight Club</em>.  Do you remember that? I <em>know</em> you do, because I saw <em>your</em> <em>face</em> when he said it…”</p><p>By the time Nushy hangs up<em>—“I have to take my new quarantine hobby out of the oven!” “Nush, it’s been twelve hours.” “Bread making is a known stress reliever, kroshka, you should try it. Stop you from wallowing.” “I’m not wallowing.” “Love you so much, don’t wallow, goodbye!”—</em>Ade feels ten tons lighter.</p><p>After a shower, and a swipe of lip gloss, she feels up to making food. Well. Up to reheating the stew and rice her mum had dropped around a few days ago.</p><p>She’s drinking the last of her orange juice straight from the carton when a crash comes from outside.</p><p><em>“MOTHER FUCK—” </em>the voice is stricken, and in pain, and <em>far</em> too close to her front door, maybe in the stairwell. Ade jumps, dropping her juice.</p><p>“<em>What the—</em>Hello?!<em>”</em>  Her heart is hammering. “What the fuck?” she mutters, striding towards the door, to look through the peephole. There’s no one there. A thump bangs against the bottom of the door.</p><p>“Ow,” says the voice, sullen and hurt, with a tinge of the dramatic.</p><p>Without thinking, she opens the door.</p><p>A body falls backwards into her apartment. The person had obviously been crouched, their back against the door, after falling, maybe? Down the stairs?</p><p>“Woah!” Ade says, stumbling backwards, out of the danger zone. “<em>What</em> is going on?”</p><p>The stranger looks up. A girl, she thinks. With black hair, chopped chin length, and a mouth like an almost perfect circle. Angry eyebrows frown over angular eyes. One of them is green. The other dark brown, just like Ade’s own.</p><p>“Who are <em>you</em>?” The girl asks, indignant.</p><p>“Who am <em>I</em>?” Ade replies, incensed at the girls arrogance. “<em>You’re</em> the one banging on my door like a maniac. On a Sunday, too. I was having a good day,” she adds, because it feels relevant. It’s a lie, but still. The girl has the decency to look bad, grimacing in acknowledgement of her heinous crime, and pushing her hair back from her face. <em>Hang on.</em> Now that Ade thinks about, she looks familiar. Familiar in the way of a teacher from a school long graduated from, or a person she used to see weekly at the grocery store two neighbourhoods and three apartments ago. She opens her mouth to ask, <em>do I know you?</em> but a police siren blares in the distance, accompanied by a voice on a loudspeaker. The apartment is illuminated for a moment in reds and blues, and Ade flinches at the noise, and the light, and the stranger in her apartment—</p><p>“WE MUST REMIND ALL CIVILIANS TO RESPECT THE SELF-ISOLATION PROTOCOLS IN PLACE AND STAY INDOORS DURING LOCKDOWN. WE MUST REMIND ALL CIVILIANS…”  The sirens fade as the car rounds the corner, trailing a damning silence in their wake. Both Ade and the girl come to the same conclusion at the same time—the words ‘self-isolation’ ringing in their ears like the toll of a giant bell. Ade takes a step back.</p><p>The girl picks herself up from the floor slowly, cradling her arm to her chest. They watch each other like prey animals, not speaking until the girl says. “I’m not sick.”</p><p>“Neither am I,” Ade replies slowly. Then, the obvious: “But you’ve come from outside.”</p><p>The girl screws up her face, like she’s about to say something she’d rather keep to herself. “<em>I’m</em> not sick, but my girlfriend is.” She pauses. “And she just kicked me out.” Waving her arm limply, nods her head at the door. “Literally.”</p><p>Ade closes her eyes in resignation. “Your telling me that you’ve come into my apartment <em>minutes</em> after being in close proximity to someone with the virus.”</p><p>“Technically, we don’t know if it actually <em>is</em> the virus. Also, I didn’t come in here on purpose, honey, trust me—”</p><p>“Oh, come <em>on.</em> No one <em>technically</em> <em>knows</em> if it’s the virus. It’s not like they’re testing people. Does she have the symptoms?”</p><p>A nod.</p><p>Ade takes a deep breath—then immediately regrets it. <em>What if she’s breathing in germs!? </em>She looks at the girl, panicked. “Well… what are we supposed to do?”</p><p>“Um, <em>I </em>need to find somewhere to live. <em>You…</em> need to calm down—"</p><p>“<em>I’m calm</em>.”</p><p>“O-Okay, well—"</p><p>It hits Ade with all the force of a brick to the face. She feels her mouth drop open in shock. “You… you can’t leave.” Her voice is tiny. “You can’t leave this apartment under any circumstance.”</p><p>“Woah, serial killer vibes.” The girl’s eyes widen, black lashes nearly touching her eyebrows.</p><p>“I <em>mean</em>, if you’ve been in contact with someone who has the virus then you have a moral obligation to your community—our community—to stop the spread.” Ade lifts her chin. “Or don’t you read the news? Honey.”</p><p>The girl smiles and looks away. Her jawline is incredible, Ade thinks fleetingly, watching as it’s brushed by the choppy ends of her hair. But then she looks back at Ade and says: “I’ve gotta say, this is the fastest I’ve ever been asked to move in with someone, and I once got engaged to a girl after knowing her for a week.” Any intrigue is doused by the cold water of irritation.</p><p>Ade rolls her eyes. “Obviously that’s not what I was saying.”</p><p>“Oh? That’s what it sounded like.”</p><p>“I just meant—I just… You can’t spread it.” She swallows. Doesn’t know what else to say.</p><p>“No,” the girl said. “No, you’re right.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “You know Miss Ortega?”</p><p>Ade blinks at the conversation’s sudden change in direction. “That old lady in 17a? The one who knits shoes for her cats?”</p><p>“Yeah.” The girl can’t hold eye contact, keeps looking away. “She’s, um. She died.”</p><p>Ade shakes her head. “No… not from..?”</p><p>The girl nods. “Yeah. Irina—my, uh, <em>ex</em>-girlfriend or whatever—thinks she got it from her son. He had a cough, that’s all. But Irina noticed it when she bumped into him coming down from Ms Ortega’s, and now she’s got it, and Ms Ortega is <em>dead.</em> So, you’re right.” She shrugged, her eyes looking a little bright, a little glassy, like she might be tearing up. “You’re <em>right</em>. But I don’t know what to do because <em>I don’t know you</em>, and my girlfriend who isn’t even my girlfriend anymore just kicked me out, and I don’t have anywhere to live.” She’s breathing quite heavily now, and it takes all Ade has to not flinch backwards, to not think about droplets of moisture in the air, or how they could contain the virus, but say instead:</p><p>“You <em>do</em> know me, though.”</p><p>The girl is taken a back, “What? No, I don’t.”</p><p>Ade is nodding, because it’s coming together now. Memories sliding into place like slides under a microscope: The sharp just of the girl’s chin, her angry eyebrows and her attitude… she almost has to stop herself from laughing in giddy relief. “You used to sit outside Fulham Broadway, by the doors of the station. Bundled in blankets… I thought you were a <em>boy.</em>”</p><p>The girl has frozen. “What.”</p><p>“I told you there was a shelter on Old Brompton Road, by the cemetery, with beds available. I knew because my best friend volunteered there. I walked you there. We got a coffee on the way. You didn’t say anything the whole time, and you were shaking like a leaf. I—I gave you my number and told you to call me if you needed anything, but you never did. It must’ve been late February, last year. It’s Jordan, right?”</p><p>The girl’s eyes have narrowed, thick eyebrows drawn tight, bowed with tension. She looks away, her eyes darting from left to right. <em>Fear</em> isn’t the word. She’s radiating terror like it’s burning her up from the inside.</p><p>“It’s okay!” Ade says. “I don’t care, that you were h—homeless,” she stumbles over the word slightly, and wants to kick herself, and then Jordan says,</p><p>“Nice to know you aren’t a terrible person.”</p><p>And Ade wants to melt through the floor. “Sorry,” she says, putting her head in her hands. “That was… dumb. I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable, by mentioning that. I just thought you might like to know I’m not a total stranger.” She smiles, and uncrosses her arms, in deference to a half-remembered psychology class about non-threatening body-language.</p><p>“It’s fine.” Jordan says. “I remember.” She finally meets Ade’s eyes. “That shelter saved my life. Or, rather, Irina did. She was volunteering there too. We hit it off, she helped me get my own place. We started seeing each other not long after that, and I moved in with her five months ago.”</p><p>They look at each other, both uncertain of where they stand, but neither of them afraid anymore. The ice well and truly broken, freshwater floods the space between them. Ade feels tremulous and half-panicked, but also more certain than she’s ever been in her entire life. She was less sure five years ago when she dropped out of university, less sure when she said yes to being Anish’s girlfriend. The last time she had felt this certain she needed to act was when she’d seen a kid shivering outside a train station and called Annushka without thinking, telling her to get a bed ready for a new resident. When she says. “You can stay here. If you want,” it feels like a dream.</p><p>Jordan doesn’t reply.</p><p>“You don’t have to decide right away,” Ade says. “It’s just that, well, you said you had nowhere to live, and I have a couch that folds into a bed.” She backs away, into the kitchen and begins to fill the kettle with water. “Why don’t we have some tea, and some biscuits—I think I’ve got some—and talk about this?” She forces herself to put down the teabags and look Jordan in the eye. Her hands are shaking, so she takes a deep breath. “There’s hand-sanitizer in the dish with the keys. If you’re going to leave, at least use some before you go.”</p><p>Jordan looks at her, angry eyes strangely wide, and then at the hand-sanitizer where it sits next to the keys, and slowly, but surely, closes the front door behind her. She says, “I’m not gonna go.”</p><p>“Okay.” Ade replies.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which dinner is had, questions are asked, and someone decides to stay ;)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“I think we're like fire and water<br/>I think we're like the wind and sea<br/>You're burning up, I'm cooling down<br/>You're up, I'm down<br/>You're blind, I see.”</p><p>- Lana del Rey, <em>Brooklyn Baby</em></p><p> </p><p>A secret: Ade Adebayo has always been more sad than happy. As a child, she was reserved, content to play alone, to make her own fun—reading, making up stories. Or talking to her grandmother, the only person who ever treated her like a person rather than a worrisome child. As a teenager, she’d been hurting, internally, for a very long time. Like she was bleeding on the inside, and the blood was fogging up her brain. She’d always tended toward the obsessive—not over cleanliness or order, but <em>emotional</em> things—and this grew worse as she got older. A show she liked, she <em>loved </em>until she couldn’t anymore, a book she liked she read over and over, thumbing its pages until the book lay destroyed, like a broken bird, spine cracked and pages loose. Nothing escaped her obsession, a fact which informs another secret about Ade: she is the same with people. Anish, for example. She’d met him in a library, browsing books on a niche theory under some subheading of neuroscience, and she’d admired his academic rigour. </p><p>“Oh,” Ade had said, pretending to happen upon him between one stack and another. Him with his prince charming smile, and big brown eyes, and easy competence, who she'd been glancing at for weeks already. From behind her pile of volumes, she’d said, cheerily, “That book looks heavy. Are you training for a weight-lifting competition or something?”</p><p>Anish had smiled good-naturedly. “No. I use my essays for that.” </p><p>They’d built a relationship on the foundations of a conversation where neither party was being wholly themselves: Ade was <em>never </em>that spontaneously cheery so early i the morning, and Anish didn't get that built lifting his essayss--he went to the gym three hours a week like it was some kind of religion, where you called the god <em>bro</em>, and couldn't miss service for anniversaries or birthdays, or even that time Ade saw a man jump in front of a tube as it pulled in to the station, and she called him, breath shallow, hiccuping, to ask, <em>can you pick me up. </em></p><p>He had seemed so put together, back then—unlike her, clutching a teetering pile of books on Ancient Greek lyric poetry, a takeaway coffee cup balancing precariously on the top. The library in question had been her University library. The University she no longer attended, but still had a library pass for. He seemed like he <em>knew what he was doing. </em>She was fraudulently continuing an education she could no longer afford.</p><p>Anish was able to like things and just like them. He knew that she could not. He also knew another secret about Ade, and he had thrown it back in her face during their break-up: “<em>Even over this stupid virus, you’re so scared,” </em>he’d said.<em> “You’re so scared of everything, of—of living, and I can’t be shackled to someone too terrified to look themselves in the eye and admit that they need help.”</em></p><p>Thinking about it now, Ade does not think she needs <em>help. </em>What a horrible thing to say to someone. She doesn’t think she’s scared either. She’s just let a semi-<em>stranger</em> into her <em>apartment</em>, and told them to stay until lockdown is over. She is living life on the edge, <em>thankyouverymuch.</em></p><p>Jordan is sitting at her kitchen table, looking out the window at the river, hair tickling her jaw—and <em>really</em> she must have cut it herself, it was so uneven—chin cupped in careful hands. Ade turns back to face Jordan with two cups of tea in one hand, and a wooden toy cart in the other. She nearly says something, nearly throws a soft <em>‘hey’</em> out into the quiet of the apartment, but the words don’t quite materialise. There is only the London skyline, the strangely empty streets, and a river winding east, reflecting the light of the setting sun. And of course there is also Jordan; a girl she met three years ago and never expected to meet again. Her new roommate, if she can be convinced. <em>Do I </em>want<em> to convince her?</em> Ade thinks. The answer seems obvious—as obvious as the blaring news reports and clear, minimalistic infographics updated every day by the NHS—<em>Do not leave your home if you have symptoms of the virus or live with someone who does</em>. It seems as obvious as the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach—the one that wants to prove Anish wrong; I’m <em>not</em> scared. The one that wants to see where this goes. The one that’s a little lonely, and a little scared, and honestly? Really doesn’t want to ride this pandemic out alone.</p><p>Ade sits down with quiet hum in lieu of a greeting, getting comfortable at the other end of the table. Feeling ridiculous, she places one cup of tea in front of her, and the other in the toy cart. Jordan looks at her, quizzical.</p><p>“Catch,” she says, and pushes the cart.</p><p>“You can’t be serious.”</p><p>Ade just waits for the cart to trundle its way into Jordan’s waiting hands, then lifts her cup. “Cheers.”</p><p>Jordan smiles, disbelief and amusement warring on the battlefield of her eyebrows. “Cheers.”</p><p>They sip their tea, and Ade doesn’t care what people might have to say about the English and their belief that a cup of tea is the cure for everything, because <em>we’re right, goddamn it. </em></p><p>“So,” she says, putting down her cup. “What are you thinking?”</p><p>Jordan shrugs. “I’m not sure.” She twists her mouth up, like she’s thinking. “I—well, it’s obvious that I’m probably a carrier for the virus.”</p><p>Ade nods.</p><p>“And it would be irresponsible and selfish of me to go outside and risk infecting others.”</p><p>Ade nods again. She wants Jordan to make up her own mind, without any pressure.</p><p>“I,” Jordan says, looking away. “I also don’t have anywhere else to say.” She meets Ade’s eyes after saying that, and the imbalance of them, the mismatch of the colours, one green, one brown, throws Ade off for a second—she can only stare. She realises she has forgotten how intense eye contact can be. She realises: <em>Anish didn’t actually </em>look at me<em> that much.</em> Then Jordan says, “And you helped me, before,” with her face wide open, almost child-like, in its trust and vulnerability, but with an edge to it, drawn in liquid eyeliner and dark eyebrows, that allows Ade to understand with a strange and sudden clarity, that things like this are hard for Jordan. That she is desperate, and that Ade’s flat is the rock to the hard place of Irina, angry and mean in 22b.</p><p>“I’d like to stay.” Jordan says, then looks away, energy spent. “If you’ll have me.”</p><p>“You can stay for as long as you want,” Ade says, like a compulsion. “I don’t mind.”</p><p>“I have money,” Jordan says awkwardly. “Not a lot, but enough to contribute to groceries, and before you interrupt me, I will genuinely die of mortification if you don’t let me contribute.”</p><p>Ade closes her mouth. She had been about to interrupt, but it makes sense that Jordan would contribute to groceries. Anyway, her job at the museum doesn’t pay enough for her to shop well for two, and she’s on 80% pay as of Monday due to lockdown. She sends a silent thanks to whoever might be listening that she wasn’t laid off.</p><p>“Alright,” she says. “That works for me.”</p><p>“Good,” Jordan smiles. “You don’t have a choice.”</p><p>“Alright,” Ade laughs. “Alright.”</p><p>They finish their tea.</p><p>*</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> “We need to decide what to do about your stuff,” Ade says. They’re still sitting at the table, more relaxed with each other’s company now. Ade is picking at biscuit crumbs, and Jordan sits with one knee drawn up onto the chair, fingers laced together on top of her left shoe—a battered air force hi-top trainer, painted in purples and blacks,</p><p>“I can go and get it, I think.”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Irina’s definitely mad, so I don’t know if she’ll let me in, but I can try. It would be nice to have my clothes, phone charger, some books. My stuff for work.”</p><p>Ade nods. She wants to ask what Jordan <em>did </em>to get Irina so mad, but she doesn’t. “You’re welcome to borrow anything, but if you can get some stuff, that would make it easier. Also, we need to decide if we’re going to enforce social distancing inside the flat.”</p><p>“Is that… even possible? Or—How would you even…?”</p><p>Ade grins, shrugging. “Yeah, I have an idea. It would also allow us to have our own space.”  </p><p>Jordan raises her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. Ade goes into her bedroom, the door of which is directly opposite the front door. She hopes Jordan doesn’t catch a glimpse of the absolute mess inside—her laptop half-open on top of a scrunched-up duvet and two pillows, one with the case half off, a bar of chocolate lying next to it on the mattress. <em>I’ll… clean that later.</em> When she closes the door, the soft click of the catch, and the following silence sounds like a thousand doors opening. She feels like something is starting. Shaking her head, she starts rummaging in her drawers, flinging aside t-shirts and underwear, adding to the growing pile on the chair by her bed, until she finds what she’s looking for. There’s less left then she thought, but it will have to do. She walks back into the kitchen, to see Jordan texting someone. The soft <em>whoosh</em> of a message sending echoes in the small room. Ade waves the ball of yarn above her head. It’s a dusky red colour, deep and dark, like rose petals or Hibiscus tea.</p><p>Jordan’s eyebrows climb higher.</p><p>Ade rolls her eyes and chucks it to Jordan, who catches it—just—and smiles in bewildered amusement before saying. “Cool, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?”</p><p>Ade puts her hands on her hips and surveys the apartment. There’s the living room, which they’re standing in, with her bedroom and bathroom behind it, and the kitchen, separated from the living area by a breakfast bar, to Jordan’s left (Ade’s right). “Social distancing rules say six feet.”</p><p>Jordan still doesn’t get it. To be fair, Ade isn’t being very clear. She’s puzzle-solving again. It’s a habit she has—it’d annoyed the hell out of Anish—that leaves people three or four exchanges behind in a conversation that has only happened in her head.</p><p>“Sorry. Um, we’re gonna cut the apartment in half.  You get half the living room, the side with the couch-bed on it, and I get the other half. We can alternate days in the kitchen, I’ll cook for you, you cook for me. The virus can’t survive on cooked food, it’s too hot. We’ll stay separate. Try not to infect each other.”</p><p>Jordan narrows her eyes, but she’s nodding. “And what about using the bathroom? Showering, and all that?”</p><p>“It’s attached to my bedroom, so walking through there is unavoidable. But if you stay six feet away from me, and sanitize the surfaces you touch, I don’t think we’ll have a problem.”</p><p>Jordan shakes her head. “This is crazy.” She looks Ade in the eyes. “I don’t know what to say. How to… thank you, or—” she closes her eyes, opens them. “This is crazy,” she repeats, but now one side of her mouth is lifting, and <em>oh, dimples, </em>there’s a rueful smile on her face. “But, like you said, I don’t... I don't think there’s really any other way.”</p><p>Ade returns the smile. It <em>is </em>crazy. It’s the most batshit insane thing she’s ever done, and she’s done a fair few insane things. She remembers her mother’s voice when she arrived back home, suitcase in hand, after her last term at university. <em>Stupid girl, </em>her mother said. <em>You’re running so fast. When you fall it’s going to hurt like hell. </em>Ade had laughed, poking her mother in the side. <em>Who said anything about falling? I’m flying, if anything. I’m on top of the world.</em> But she’d gone to her room and sat there, trying not to cry, thinking, <em>what have I done.</em></p><p>She isn’t thinking that now. Now, she feels buoyant and excited. Younger, for some reason. It’ll be like a sleepover, and she’s helping someone out of a hard situation, so she’s doing good. And hasn’t everyone been saying they need to support their community?</p><p>Jordan’s peering at here, knife-sharp eyeliner creasing at the corners. “You okay?”</p><p>“Yes.” Ade replies. “Are you okay?”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m fine.” Jordan smirks into her mug of tea, taking a final sip. “Hey roomie.”</p><p>Ade grins back, rolling her eyes. “Hey.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Ade pours red wine into two of her favourite glasses—big, sophisticated looking wine glasses Annushka had bought her back from a trip to France three years ago—after asking Jordan if she wants some with dinner. (<em>Hell yes, </em>had been the enthusiastic, grateful reply.) She places one of the wine glasses in the cart and Jordan pulls it over to the other side of the table. They both grin like idiots, like little kids, playing at being adults. Ade half expects the wine to taste like cranberry-grape juice, and wonders for a moment when their parents will arrive to spoil the fun. She’s made chicken for dinner, a simple recipe with lots of paprika, and cayenne pepper. There’s a heaping of summery salad to accompany it, and potatoes.</p><p>“Wow,” Jordan says. “This looks incredible, thank you.”</p><p>Ade tips her glass in reply. “You’re welcome. I like cooking.” She doesn’t know what else to say suddenly, though they’ve been chatting like old friends all afternoon.  “So,” she says, a little awkwardly. “Tell me about yourself.”</p><p>Jordan nearly chokes on her wine. Ade startles, then blushes furiously, when she sees the Jordan is laughing at her.</p><p>“<em>Um</em>, what?” she says. “That is a perfectly reasonable question. Right?”</p><p>Jordan shakes her head, still snorting. “Yeah, at, like, a job interview, or a—a Tinder date.”</p><p>“Well, I’ve never been on a Tinder date, so I wouldn’t know.” Ade jabs a finger at her. “Why don’t you say something interesting then, if you’re so clever.”</p><p>Jordan narrows her eyes, like she’s assessing Ade as an opponent in a cage-fighting match. It’s unsettling, but Ade is coming to realise this is her thinking face. It’s almost… cute. (She feels like there is a significant chance Jordan would knife her if she said that out loud.)</p><p>“If you could choose,” Jordan finally says. “Would you rather know <em>when</em> you die, or <em>how</em>?”</p><p>“How.” Ade says immediately. “No, wait. When, definitely when. So I could prepare.”</p><p>Jordan nods sagely. “Would you rather be burned alive or freeze to death?”</p><p>“Freeze. I’ve heard it’s like falling asleep.”</p><p>“If you won the lottery what would you do with it?”</p><p>Ade grins. “Have you seen Ocean’s 8?”</p><p>“Duh.”</p><p>“I would… assemble a team.”</p><p>“Oh <em>hi</em>, Fury, Nicholas J.”</p><p>“Shut up. I’d use the money to pay them all thousands, and then we would infiltrate the British Museum—"</p><p>“Oh my god, <em>yawn.”</em></p><p>“Stop interrupting! We would infiltrate the British Museum and steal all the artefacts stolen under British Imperialism, and anonymously ship them back to the countries they belong to.”</p><p>Jordan claps her hands with glee. “Okay I take my yawn back, Miss Indiana Jones. That’s really fucking cool.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“<em>No</em>, you absolute nerd, that’s the geekiest crime I’ve ever had to bear theoretical witness to. Where is the drama? The intrigue? The casinos and the dynamite?”</p><p>“<em>I’m robbing colonisers</em>! There’s no dynamite because these are precious fucking artefacts, you knobhead, and any damage would be a tragedy of untold proportions. You can’t blow up a wall to get to the Elgin Marbles! The Marbles <em>are the wall</em>.”</p><p>Jordan is nearly crying with laughter, gasping, and holding the table like she might collapse if she doesn’t. “Oh my god, I can’t believe this.”</p><p>“Well what would you do!?”</p><p>Jordan lets the laughter go, and Ade can almost see it, blowing in gales of diamond dust, floating up through the ceiling. “I’d buy mansions on top of mansions, and hotels and gated communities, and I’d house the homeless in them.” She’s still smiling, straight teeth and dimples out in full force. “And I’d buy the eyeliner that costs like £25 whenever I wanted it. And I’d get a cat.”</p><p>Ade nods. “That’s wonderful,” she says, because it is, and so is the look in Jordan’s eye, like she could re-shape the world, moulding it like plasticine with her capable hands, flicking billionaires off its surface, one chipped black nail-polished fingertip at a time.</p><p>“No, it’s sappy as fuck. Also, I’d blow up Trump tower.”</p><p>“What is that? Sounds like something out of a comic book.”</p><p>“He’s just this annoying rich guy who hosts the American apprentice. Like Lord Sugar but worse. Gives me heinous vibes. He has this big fuck-off tower in New York, it’s like a symbol of all things shitty and capitalist.”</p><p>“I don’t think you need to be a millionaire to blow something up.”</p><p>“Oh, but you do to get away with it.”</p><p>“<em>True</em>.”</p><p>A natural silence falls, both of them picking at the remnants of a meal neither remembers eating. Ade can’t recall the last time she laughed like this. In such a simple way, too: over an evening meal with someone she’s getting to know, who she thinks she might like to know for a very long time, and in depth. It’s a sweet feeling, sweet like the wine, or like the caramel she’s been saving that she wants to offer Jordan, cold from the fridge. It makes her nervous. She feels so unsure. But she isn’t scared. She pushes away from the table, and motions for Jordan to push her plate over on the cart.</p><p>“It’s getting late,” Ade says. “We should get you settled in here. You can borrow clothes.” She throws a smile back over her shoulder as she makes her past the breakfast bar to the kitchen. “I have some things in black, don’t worry.”</p><p> “Oh, thank god.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>That night, Ade lies awake for a while, her thoughts racing, predicting the days ahead, and rewinding the last one. She thinks about groceries, and the relative coolness of her current Spotify playlist--what is the risk of mortification if she shuffles it in front of Jordan?--and the apartment in terms of square feet, dividing it by six in every way she can. She thinks about the virus and wonders wildly how long lockdown will last, and how much of the Museum’s online catalogue she can organise and update from home so as not to go absolutely crazy in this apartment all alone.</p><p><em>Except</em>, she remembers, <em>I’m not alone</em> at all. She thinks about two cups of tea and caramel, cold from the fridge.</p><p>She thinks about Jordan.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A slightly longer chapter than before! I hope people are still enjoying it :D  I'm enjoying writing it. But I'm still bored as hell lol, I cannot lieeeee.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope that if someone did read this, they enjoyed it! This will be updating once a week. Kudos are my sunshine while I can't go outside!!</p><p>I've made a <a>tumblr</a> for this series if anyone wants to give it a follow. And a <a>website</a>, because I have waaay too much time rn, and I draw, so I might put some comics up of these characters.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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